Vlad Tepes
Vlad Tepes is a first generation pureblood vampire. She is the leader of the group of vampires that refused to go to Crepuscule and stayed at the human world, though she is now inside of Lark's body. Appearance Tepes has red, short hair, except for a few long clumps, which she ties in a ponytail. During some occasions, red tribal tattoos form all over her cheeks and neck on both sides. She's a few inches taller than Lark, moreso taller than Carmilla, but shorter than Nergal. She dresses in men's clothes and generally acts like a man because this is how she chooses to act, but doesn't seem to care if someone points out her attire differs from her perceived sex. The exception is an incident with Florian who began to tease her about it. It's confirmed that she has changed bodies only once - to a man's body, which is Lark's body, which is pointed out by Gilles de Rais who says that the body she's using right now is a man's body as opposed to her previous female body. Personality Tepes is a proud person and has a very strong will. She hates the human species - with the exception of one special human, who she loves, and his mother whom she owes - and believes that humans are far inferior from vampires and she didn't even hesitate to propose the annihilation of all of them. As opposed to Carmilla, she doesn't believe in gentle methods when dealing with children she believes are weak and uses her own methods to straighten them out and make them stronger. She doesn't easily forgive people who betray her and hates Carmilla for making a world that's killing the vampires outside of it in order for the vampires who are mutating inside of it to survive. Around people she knows - mainly those in her clan - she is shown to be very calm and in control with a realistic way of thinking. Though her words can sometimes be sharp, she has good intentions and genuinely cares for her clan and Lark. She even seems to be extemely sympathetic to the problems of other people, provided that she knows them and cares about them. Anyone outside of this spectrum, however, is not important to her and reacted to flippantly and without care. Unfortunately, her nature of not caring what people think of her causes a number of misunderstandings. History Until hundreds of years ago, Tepes and Carmilla were the two leaders of the vampires in the human world. When Gilles de Rais was a small kid, Tepes used to torture him every day, supposedly in order to toughen him. Tepes hated humans and she greatly opposed Carmilla's plan of creating a world especially for vampires. Instead, Tepes proposed to solve the differences with humans by wiping them out. Eventually, Carmilla lead her friends and followers to Crepuscule. Tepes tried unsuccessfully to convince Nergal to stay with her. During this conversation, she accepted that she was jealous to see him go. Eventually, a minority of vampires with Tepes as their leader stayed behind. As years went by, magic started vanishing inexplicably from the human world, something that made Tepes and her group weak. 15 years ago, just a few weeks before Lark's birth, Tepes got inro a fight with Nergal. She was wounded badly in the ribs and was washed out at the shore, unconscious, near Florian Alfen. Lark's mother, still pregnant, carried her to her house and, despite her sister's objections, took care of her. Tepes spent some time with her, but eventually left before she was thoroughly healed. After failing to enter Crepscule, she meets Florian again. Florian begs Tepes to take her with her. Tepes agrees with the intent of having Florian as food for Priscilla, a pregnant vampire. When she returns to her clan, she learns that Priscilla is missing. She leaves to find Priscilla and discovers Priscilla is having birthing pains, which has never happened to a vampire before. Tepes takes Priscilla back to the village and is desperate to have someone help deliver the baby. Florian volunteers and successfully delivers the baby. Later, Tepes successfully enters Crepuscule and meets Nergal, who tells her that Crepuscule is taking mana from the outer world, leading to the death of the vampires still living there. Tepes, enraged, declares her intent to murder Carmilla, causing Nergal to label her as an enemy and attack her. Tepes later returns to her clan and prevents them from killing Florian. Tepes leaves with Florian and stays with her, trying (and failing) to heal from her battle with Nergal. Tepes realizes that she is dying and she uses her power to merge with Florian's baby, Lark. But because she merged with Lark, Florian died of a seizure and caused Lark to have red eyes. Plot Overview Part I Some months after Lark has started having dreams with Carmilla, Tepes appears before him in one of them as a red doppelganger of his for a little while, and without saying anything to him. Part II Around two weeks pass and Tepes appears again in Lark's dream, along with Carmilla. Lark is crying over Angela's death. Tepes attacks Carmilla with her ability and proposes to Lark to help him take revenge. Lark, lost in his grief, accepts and Tepes offers him her power. After this, Lark explodes a school wall and ends up starting a fight with Sia. When Sia hits Lark hard, Tepes takes over, while still inside the boy, and attacks Sia, leaving him unconscious. She leads Lark outside of school and waits for Lark to take over again. Tepes starts regularly talking to Lark even when the boy is awake and refuses to listen to Carmilla's objections to her and Lark's actions. A while later Lark returns to the Nergal region, where he meets and starts a fight with Nergal who had come to try and soothe Lark's grief. After his scuffle with him, Tepes pulls him into his dreams. There she agrees that since Lark is more clear-headed now, she will show him how they are connected. She then shows him with a flashback how she met his mother, 15 years ago, and everything that happened that led up to her using her power to live inside of his body. After this is done, she says that if Lark wishes, she would repay Florian by temporarily putting her goals aside, and promises to "give him everything until there is nothing left to give". She then encourages Lark to not be lost any more and to move forward in exchange, joining his parents's voices in telling Lark that they love him. The next day, she can be seen speaking with Lark about the definite possibility of Navarus knowing the information that they need. She doesn't appear again until Lark has gone to the Council and after he's separated from Bathory, Sai, and Setz on the way to see Gilles de Rais who had ordered Chocolat and Millefeuille to let them through, telling him that she's leaving it up to him. Lark gets into a fight with Gilles and while Gilles taunts Lark about the real ability that comes with the darkness side of Tepes's power, she ends up possessing Lark to tell Gilles to stop trying to irritate Lark after spending the fight at the front of Lark's mind, watching it silently and grimacing at times. When Gilles becomes unable to use his ability and resorts to using magic, she ends up taking over Lark's body with a glare without explaining why to him, knowing that she doesn't have time to explain herself. Tepes tries to talk sense into Gilles, but only ends up making him angry and is forced to fight in Lark's stead, thinking that she can instead knock some sense into him. She currently seems to be unaware that Carmilla is in contact with Lark once more. She continues to fight fight Gilles trying to put him in his place - and turn him over to her side when they stop to talk - but is quickly hindered by Lark's fragile human body, stating that human bodies are quite fragile and revealing to Gilles that Lark is a human body. She tells him how she ruined his life Lark's life when Gilles questioned her, but she would make everything up to him. She then says to hand over Carmilla's body after Gilles comes to understand that's what she's after because she plans to leave Lark's body and take over hers. On the inside, Lark doesn't think this plan has anything to do with him, but he soon realizes that this is exactly what Angela wanted and seems to comply with Tepes's plan for the time being. While they talk, Bathory runs in yelling and worrying for Lark, but Tepes tells her to stay back because it's dangerous. Bathory does not listen, insisting that Tepes tell her what she did to Lark, but Gilles tells them both to shut up and casts a spell that shakes the entire mansion the Coucil had been using. She looks on as she sees the damage that Lark did to Gilles that Gilles had iced over and made worse, not initially understanding what's going on. Gilles de Rais explains that he would sooner die than tell her where Carmilla's body is after implying that Tepes needs him in order to find her and they resume fighting. Tepes still seems unaware of what's going on inside of Lark's body. Her fight with Gilles continues and when she learns that he is using a magic tool to make up for is lack of magic, she destroys it by spreading out her light particles, kicks him, and calls him pathetic. Eventually Lark is able to wrangle control of his body back from her and she is irritated by that, stating that it suprised her to be pushed back into Lark's subconsciousness. Tepes is next seen standing in Lark's consciousness, watching Lark get strangled by Gilles with a worred look or her face. Tepes is next seen using her Darkness ability to manifest in front of everyone after Millefeuille explains Gilles de Rais's motivations. Once she beats Gilles de Rais up to a degree that she is satisfied with - commenting that she feels a bit better now - Millefeuille laughs at him and Chocolat questions her as to how she can be seen by them and why she didn't do it sooner. She explains that until now, Lark had only accepted her; once he finally "understood" her and "rejected" her, terms she uses loosely, she says that she was able to take this form and for that, she's grateful. She says that she supposes Lark can't use her power anymore and listens to Lark's problems with the way she's doing things quietly. In the end, she still decides to go forward with her plan and says that she considers the race outside more precious to her than the pitiful race inside of Crepuscule, and that she will do whatever it takes. Tepes turns on Lark and tells him that she'll have to borrow his body again, much to his chagrin and annoyance. When Lark tells Tepes that Crepuscule is his paradise because people accept him in this world, Tepes tells Lark that he is wrong; the only reason he is able to live there is because no one knows he is human yet and tells him to come with her and she would return him to his true paradise. But afterwards Bathory steps in to say that she's Lark's family and she will stay with Lark until he dies; Lark and Tepes seem to have forgotten that this could not be true since Bathory doesn't have much longer to live. Lark rejects Tepes's offer and Tepes thinks to herself everyone she loves rejects her. Tepes tells Lark she is happy he is not lonely anymore, but will fulfill her wishes and once again returns to his body to take him on the road to Carmilla's body. When Lark wakes up, he is shocked to be standing in front of Carmilla's frozen body. Tepes tells Lark that she knew Lark would find 'road' to Carmilla's body because he was in contact with her soul. She then tells him to kill Carmilla, something that only he can do. She goes on to explain that only by killing Carmilla can Crepuscule be destroyed. Lark says no he won't kill Carmilla and while crying asked Tepes why she won't listen to what he has to say, telling her she is just like everyone else trying to take what little he has left. He then asks her why she won't believe in him, which shocks her because she didn't initially realize that that was exactly what she was doing. Lark say he understands more then anyone what she is trying to do, but it isn't the right time; he explains that Angela was researching the cure and he asks her to wait until it's done to destroy Crepuscule. He understands that Tepes wants to protects the vampires from the outer world, but he wants to protect the vampires from the inner world too. Angela said it will take time, but it will go faster if Tepes helps him. He tells her he believes there is another way, which brings back a memory of Florian and she tells Lark he was right and that she was the only one that didn't believe while smiling at him. She states that Lark has gotten stronger and Florian would be happy. Power and Abilities Ability Tepes's ability, "Light and Darkness", is a nature-type ability and is regarded as the most powerful among vampires. Light and Darkness can't be separated from each other. This is the reason why Tepes's body and ability have the two sides of it. To create Light, Tepes herself has to become Darkness, as well as the opposite. When Tepes uses Light, it can take the shape of anything ranging from destructive crimson bolts to a tornado of pure destructive power. Though it has not been used by Tepes yet, seeing as Lark gets all his abilities from Tepes, it is likely that Tepes can stand on Light particles as well alongside being able to heal herself and materialize clothing, as this ability belongs to her. However, when Tepes was taking Florian to her village and they were above the trees it is likely that she was using the light particles to move as she was not using her wings to fly - although this could just be her normal vampiric abilities, as it's unclear whether she's jumping through air or floating along. It is shown in that she can take control of Lark's body, doing this when he is knocked unconscious (and in danger), or more recently at her own will to ward off danger; how she can do this is still unclear, though she does it only when Lark is, as stated before, in danger. Her normal vampire abilities are limited while she's using Lark's body though and her strength is reduced to that of Lark's own human strength, which is still enough for her to lift Gilles off of the floor and throw him. Tepes seems to have the ability to appear on the outside of Lark's body, but as Tepes's real body was destroyed fifteen years ago this is part of her dark ability and is a simple, non-solid manifestation. She can use her ability again to make the blows she deals out solid for a time. Since the entirety of her existence is inside of Lark, she's able to speak with him privately and see everything that goes on through his eyes. While first conversing with Lark Tepes takes the form of identical version of Lark the difrence is Tepes had her red hair and tribal marks, how she did this is unknown she probably did this to gain Lark's trust sense reverting to her true form she has not done this again. Tepes is shown manifesting herself as a shadow figure and as a translucent figure as well. Inside of Lark's body and subconscious alongside Carmilla, Tepes is shown to be the dominant presence on par with Lark himself. Relationship Lark Alfen Tepes has been watching over Lark from inside of him since he was a fetus inside of his mother's womb. She, for all intents and purposes, loves Lark. Before the disappearance of her body due the restrictions of her darkness ability, she turned herself into darkness and merged with Lark; because of this, Lark inherited Tepes's red eyes and is eventually able to use her ability with her permission. Because Tepes can see everything that happens to Lark, she is the only one who knows everything about Lark. She understands him best and as such, Tepes initially treats Lark like a parent would treat their son, protecting Lark from Sai and Nergal's attacks. When Lark got injured in a fight with Sai, she took possesion of his body to protect him, and when he fought Nergal she scolded him harshly. However, once she has shown Lark her memories she seems to loosen up with him. After giving Lark her power, she's been shown to be conversing with Lark more often, keeping him safe and helping him through out. She has even taken to defending him from Gilles de Rais's taunts, not wanting Gilles to agitate Lark and confuse him by telling him about what her darkness ability can really do, despite glaring at him when he questions her methods as she takes over his body and uses her freedom for a limited amount of time. While she certainly cares for Lark, the beloved human she's dwelled inside of as a "sleeping darkness", Gilles is still a child that she raised and she feels she has to set him right and make him understand, and ultimately pull him to her side, which puts her at odds with what Lark wishes to do. Despite her end goal coming to light after finding out that Carmilla's body was preserved by Gilles de Rais, she still claims that she's going to make it up to him in the end. Despite being pushed back into Lark's subconscious by Lark and therefore irritating her, she watches him fight with Gilles with a worried expression on her face instead of trying to take control back from him, thus showing how much she cares for him. While she does sympathize with him and consider the race inside of Crepuscule pitiful, she still cares about her clan on the outside and as such, will regrettably borrow his body without his permission if she must. Tepes's love for Lark only keeps growing, as shown when Lark rejects Tepes's plan; she appears to be sad and thinks to her self that once again a person she loves rejected her. Another example is when she changes her mind of destroying Crepuscule and goes along with Lark's plan, believing in him and saying she was the only one that didn't believe. She's shown to even touch him (and give him back her power) when she's only ever touched - with any level of affection - Liz, giving him a pat on the head like she did with Liz. Carmilla Erzebet Tepes was the second leader who lead the vampire alongside Carmilla for hundreds of years. However, Carmilla left to create a new world just for vampires while Tepes and her followers chose to stay behind. Tepes hates Carmilla and told Nergal that she couldn't forgive her for what she was doing to the vampires in the outside world and would tear her to pieces. While inside of Lark's body, she tends to interfere with Carmilla's attempts at "guiding" Lark, and has once killed her in Lark's dream world in order to get her out of the way because she states that Carmilla does not understand Lark like she does. Carmilla has known that Tepes has been inside of Lark ever since she walked into his dream around the time he first arrived in Crepuscule and since then has been watching over him, something Tepes evidently does not care for. Her loathing towards Carmilla has only seemed to increase as time went by, although her love for Lark and her promise towards Florian have kept her from stopping Carmilla from speaking with Lark completely for the most part. Tepes wishes to take over Carmilla's body and destroy the world she created, putting the paradise called Crepuscule to an end and setting everything straight. It is revealed by Tepes that the only wat to destroy Crepuscule is to desrtoy Carmilla's body and they only one who can do that is Lark supposedly because he is the only one that has come in contact with her soul if this is the real reason it is still unknown. Gilles de Rais Gilles is the charge that she took in when he was still young, lost and alone in the forest. She often put him through hell and trained him, wanting him to toughen up so that he wouldn't be bullied anymore and going so far as to tell Carmilla to keep her children away from him because they were bothering him. They had a parent-son relationship before Gilles went to Crepuscule, but Gilles - because of a misunderstanding - insulted her and ruined their relationship. Tepes states that she doesn't ever want to see him in front of her again and that she hopes they never meet again. In the past, she taught him how to tap into and use his power because his father was strong and she wanted to make him the same. While she was his father's hated rival, she still respected his power all the same. In fact, one of the first things he learned from her was how to make his ice turn into hail. She seems to think she can talk sense into him most of the time after they meet again decades later, but in the end her hand was forced in order to reel him in to her side. Nergal In the past, it seems like she thought fairly highly of Nergal and respected him. It's implied that she might've had some feelings for him, but they faded because he was always looking at Carmilla and followed her to Crepuscule. They got into at least two fights before Nergal tries to kill her, very nearly succeeding had it not been for the other side of Tepes's ability saving her by becoming one with Lark. Now, she hates Nergal, though she still respects that he's strong, evident in the way she scolds Lark for fighting with him and telling Lark that he's out of Lark's league. Other Information It is interesting to note that Vlad Tepes takes his name from Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia - also known as Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Dracula (after his father, Vlad II Dracul). The real Vlad Tepes, of course, inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula, the original and definitive vampire story. Category:Characters Category:Female Category:Adult Category:First Generation Category:Pure Blood Vampire Category:Vampire Category:Vampire/Monster Races Category:Deceased